What form of torture do you believe to be the most horrendous?

Answer 1

Being 'Broken on the Wheel' (makes crucifixion look like an euthanasia 'mercy killing').

The condemned is held down naked while the executioner takes a large wagon wheel and systematically breaks the arms and legs in four different places until the limbs flop around like tentacles (oozing blood and bone marrow).

Then the victim is placed on top of the wagon wheel while his (or her) broken arms and legs are threaded through the spokes in and out several times.

Then the wagon wheel with the still living condemned is placed on top of a large pole and left there until they die, which could be three days or more.

Meanwhile the crows and insects are picking and biting at the dying convict.

This was practiced throughout Rome and Medieval Europe right up to the French Revolution in 1789.

In 18th century France, the nobility and aristocracy were executed by guillotine, but the poor and peasants were either hanged or broken on the wheel. Thousands died this way before the French Revolution equalized the manner of death for rich and poor (all condemned got guillotined).

Answer 2

I read all of the current answers, and I have to say some of them are pretty bad. Here's a few, though:

1. Being tied to a chair while sitting in a hole or small well ... for months on end. The catch is, that even though someone comes by to feed you every couple of days, you don't move. At all. Which means you "use the bathroom" where you sit. Since you're not moving for months and months, and all that area down there is just sitting in filth, it eventually starts to rot. And during all of this, the hole or pit you are sitting in is filled to your waist with maggots. And, uh, maggots eat rotting flesh ...

2. Having tons of scratches all over your body, and someone coming by every so often to rub salt in your wounds. Literally.

3. Have you seen the movie Cell with Jennifer Lopez? There's a scene where this guy is strapped down to a table. His stomach is gashed with a knife, but not severely. Just bad enough where she reaches in, gets a piece of his guts, and ties it to a stick that's above him. Then she starts to turn the stick, rotisserie style, so the guts are slooooowly pulled out and around the stick. *shivers*

=P

Answer 3

The worst pains are the ones you can feel but you can't see. But from a third point view, the worst kind to see is definitely physical torture.

Answer 4

Poverty.
Trust Me.

EDIT: Poverty can cause sleep deprivation, which someone else thinks is torture. I think being awake is more like Life than torture.
You'll probably survive sleep deprivation, your body will shut itself off and go to sleep, usually, when you're tired.

Answer 5

Free-form jazz... haha, is that a Kids in the Hall reference? I think disemboweling would be pretty bad too, or having the head crushed in a vise; apparently the teeth go first, then the eyes.

Answer 6

i can't remember the name of it but it was in the Count of Monte Cristo. i think they used this dull blade to decapitate hands and arms and heads. the fact that they're dull really sucks because then the executioner is like hacking away if your head doesn't fall off fast enough.

Answer 7

Sleep depervassion is the most effective. I think electrical leads attached to your genitals would be pretty bad. Or disembowling that's got to hurt

Answer 8

Marriage.

Answer 9

Have you read 1984? What can be worse than having your spirit destroyed?

Answer 10

Free-form jazz.